And Then
by phollie
Summary: This is what glory must look like. Nezumi introspection on witnessing Shion's scream. K.


So.

No. 6.

I'm kind of..._really_ in love with you at the moment. I haven't fallen this hard for a story since Pandora Hearts. I fear there's no escape, and I'm _totally okay with that._

I own nothing. The lyrics are "After the Storm" by Mumford and Sons, which every Nezumi fan absolutely must hear, because I swear it was written for him.

* * *

><p><strong>.and then<strong>

/

_and after the storm_

_i run and run as the rains come_

_and i look up_

_i look up_

_on my knees and out of luck_

_i look up_

/

Up above, on some wild and bright plane of existence, there's a boy screaming to the heavens. His throat is straining, voice crackling on the tail end of a whipping wind, and Nezumi, twelve years old and bleeding onto the grass, has never seen anything so beautiful in his life.

He thinks this is what glory must look like. Or...hell, he doesn't really know, but _something_ happens to his heart as he gapes up at the screaming boy, the rain pelting down on his face until it stings and the wound in his shoulder aching like mad; this boy, this tiny little speck of wonder with his siren's call of an endless shout, is all the glory and majesty that this horrible cage of a city had long buried – either buried, or shot until it bled out and burnt to ash, kicked under the floorboards and marked out of history. Nezumi, after all, is one of those things; just ask the bullet wound and the tracker sewn into his nerves, inescapable and omnipotent, a hardwired god.

Yes, glory – that's what this strange boy is. Nezumi briefly considers the idea that he's hallucinating, that he's lost too much blood and this entire display of rebellion is nothing more than some black and white movie reel played out right before you die in a place far away from home. He kind of _feels_ like he's dying, because he's cold and keeps swaying on his feet as if he might keel over at any moment, and everything just feels strange, as if he's seeing everything for the first and last time. It's scary.

It's scary, and yet Nezumi isn't afraid - because there's a boy up there, high up on the balcony like he's in some old Shakespeare play, screaming as if he knows exactly what it's like to _hate_.

Nezumi knows what it's like to _hate, _too. And as of right now, he thinks he knows what it's like to love, or to feel as though your heart is fit to burst in your ribs and splinter into scarlet shards on the ground. Truth be told, he's feeling a lot of things right now, things he only understands in breaths and pieces, but that's okay; as long as that glorious boy keeps screaming out his death wish to this forsaken city of secrets and peril, keeps reaching out to the bloodied, broken rat of a child gazing up at him from afar, then everything - _everything_ - will be okay.

Slumping onto his knees, Nezumi's hand shakes from both the pain of the bullet having grazed his shoulder to the fizzling torrents of disbelief clawing at his psyche. There's something clutching at his heart that makes it hard to breathe, as if there are phantom hands wrapping around the pulsing chambers and holding them hostage. Somewhere in the back of Nezumi's mind, he thinks he likes it. It's a nice feeling in that it's an ugly one. It feels cruel and biting and consuming and, god, it feels _alive._

After a moment, the screaming boy is just a boy again, having hushed his rage towards the wind and the rain in favor of sagging against the railing of the balcony, exhausted and sated as if having just run a hundred miles. Nezumi laughs, a soft puff of sound that's both parts overwhelmed and skeptical, and perhaps a tad infatuated if he squints – he's a child of violent angles and sharp eyes, all cobalt and gray like some ink-stained wolf cub, and yet there's a softness blooming in his chest, something he thinks he might want to get to know better.

If he's onto something here – and Nezumi's instinct is _never_ wrong, not once – he'd call this boy a miracle, that open window a gate to salvation, that shrill cry out to the city Nezumi has always _hated_ a siren's call to a new life. If Nezumi were a normal child, he'd call this whole thing frightening, the change too drastic, the risk too severe; but, well, Nezumi _isn't_ a normal child, and so therefore he isn't afraid. Not once does his resolve falter even if his knees threaten to as he struggles to his feet, blood seeping from between his fingers, his body a stringy, ravenous shape staggering through the gloom and gray of the rain. His limbs are flimsy like soaked ribbons and there's a deathly chill seeping into his blood, but Nezumi doesn't think, doesn't care, _doesn't look back._

Maybe he's coming home. Maybe that's what this is.

Wherever he's going – wherever that wild-eyed boy with all the majesty that this city has swallowed from the rest of them recedes to – Nezumi just hopes it's warm. Quiet, and warm.


End file.
